Honoring A Marine's Marine

Service Honors Corps' Beloved `Chesty' Puller

November 11, 1997|By JUDITH HAYNES Daily Press

MIDDLESEX — Virginia Puller, who will be 90 in February, stopped to greet the young members of a Marine color guard as she entered Christ Church on Monday afternoon for a ceremony honoring her late husband.

``Thank you so much for coming,'' she said. ``He's in Heaven, but he would love your-all's being here.''

Lt. Gen. Lewis Burwell ``Chesty'' Puller, the most decorated Marine in history, is legendary not only for his military exploits but for that same friendliness and caring.

FOR THE RECORD - Published correction ran Thursday, November 13, 1997.An article on Tuesday's front page about the ceremony honoring the late Lt. Gen. Lewis Burwell ``Chesty'' Puller incorrectly referred to Barbara Cockrell as Christ Church rector. She served as lector at the ceremony. (The text of this article has been changed to reflect the correction)

Even Marines who were born after Puller died in 1971 know him for his closeness to his troops - a trait that has had the opposite result of helping to elevate him to near sainthood.

``We have basically a shrine set aside at Puller Hall,'' at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, said Sgt. Robert B. Davenport, 24, of Stuart, Va. ``He's a hero to every Marine . . . He looked out for his junior Marines first.''

Davenport was among a group of Marines from Puller Hall in a color guard and a firing squad at the ceremony, sponsored by the Old Dominion Chapter of the First Marine Division Association to mark the 222nd birthday of the Corps and Puller's prominent place in it.

About 60 people, including Marines in uniform, business suits and workclothes, sang hymns and reminisced.

Pfc. Christian Gomez, 20, from New York City, first heard of Puller when Gomez was in boot camp. ``They told us he was a good man. Half of his life was the Marine Corps. Half was his family.''

Cmdr. Lonnie Meachum, retired, age 92, of Virginia Beach, spoke briefly about the Chesty Puller he came to know during their five tours of duty together.

``He didn't miss church,'' said Meachum, a chaplain, recalling one time in New Guinea when Puller ordered heavy equipment to stop operating because the noise was drowning out the preaching.

Two of their five tours together were in wartime, in the South Pacific during World War II and in Korea. Meachum said Puller ``was never without a kind word to a person who needed it.''

Floyd Newkirk of Virginia Beach served in the Marines four years before receiving a medical discharge in 1955. He remembers Puller as an officer ``who never hung with the top, he hung with the bottom. . . . You would find him anywhere. He would eat with you, he would drink with you.''

Chesty and Virginia Puller's son Lewis Jr. ``copied the same thing,'' had the same skill, Newkirk said.

Lewis Jr. lost both legs and most of a hand to a booby trap in 1968 while a Marine in Vietnam. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for the autobiography ``Fortunate Son.'' He killed himself in 1994 after suffering from depression and alcoholism.

The tragedy is still too raw to talk about, Davenport said.

Chesty Puller served 38 years, winning the Navy Cross five times for heroism and gallantry in action, and numerous other decorations and awards.

While his time did not extend to Vietnam, that and other engagements, and the people who served in them, were called to mind Monday.

Ceremony lector Barbara Cockrell, the mother of a Marine, read Ecclesiasticus in the historic church before the wreath-laying at Puller's grave. ``Let us now praise famous men . . . there are some of them who have left a name.'' And, she read, there are others who are buried and whose names are forgotten, but whose righteous deeds are not.

Rector Scott Krejci said the group was there to remember all the men and women ``who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy.''

RING OUT AT 11 A.M.

Today, churches in Newport News, ships in the harbor, and Newport News Shipbuilding will revive the custom of sounding bells, car horns and whistles at 11:11 a.m. in observance of Veterans Day. Veterans groups ask that you join them by making some kind of noise - a tribute to the region's veterans.

The time and tradition of today's observance can be traced back nearly eight decades. Veterans Day, designated in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower "to honor veterans on the eleventh day of November of each year ... a day dedicated to world peace," has its roots in Armistice Day. Armistice Day - still observed in Great Britain - commemorates the end of World War I, on Nov. 11, 1918.

The armistice was signed in Compiegne, France, at 5 a.m. local time; fighting along the Western Front came to a halt at 11 a.m. It became custom to observe a silent memorial - or, alternately, to sound bells - at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month each year.

"11:11:11" reminded the public of veterans' sacrifice during a war that took the lives of more than 115,000 American soldiers - and nearly 10 million worldwide.

PULLER STAMP

Retired Marine Maj. Jacques Loraine and his wife, Jayne, a former Marine staff sergeant, announced Monday that the U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp to honor Chesty Puller in about two years. The Loraines, who arranged Monday's ceremony, also organized a petition drive for the stamp.

They said they received more than 155,000 signatures from all over the world. The stack was 63 inches high, said Jayne Loraine.

The Postal Service's official announcement of the stamp will come about a year before it is issued, said Jacques Loraine.

(IN WEST POINT

V.F.W. Post 8356 and its auxiliary will lay a wreath and fire a salute in honor of Veterans Day at Veterans Memorial Park on Route 30 in West Point.

The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. with the national anthem sung by Linda Goodman. Lt. Col. Tony Billings of Fort Monroe, the director of public affairs and recruiting for the Army ROTC, will speak.

Color guards from the Junior ROTC units at Gloucester, King and Queen and Charles City high schools will perform. Buglers and drummers will be from West Point High School.)